Fantasy for All Ages

Skipping Around

One of the advantages to working on a second draft is you don’t have to go in any particular order. I know some people write first drafts out of order, working on whatever is most exciting first. Since I’m about two-thirds discovery writer, it really works best for me to tackle the first draft from beginning to end.

On the second draft, though, I already know the story. I’ve got some notes in it for things I want to change, add, build up, etc. And now I can take them in any order. I still usually try to work from beginning to end, but if I find myself getting stuck anywhere, I can easily just skip to another chapter.

So, that’s what I’ve been doing on SEVEN STARS. I got a little stuck on exactly how I want to handle something with my first point-of-view character, so I skipped to the other. (This story has two point-of-view characters.)

In some ways, at least for me, second drafts are almost as much fun as first drafts. And they are first drafts, at least in part, because the manuscript usually grows by about a third.

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2 Responses

I actually only was able to get through City of Magi by not going in order. It definitely meant I needed to touch up some scenes because I changed the rules on myself, but it helped me finish the middle bits when I wrote the ending (or the part that led right to it).

Yeah, everybody has to work differently. I sometimes write a few scenes that will happen later in the story, but for the most part I have to work more or less in order on the first draft. After that, all bets are off.